Study: Walmart scores on Facebook, Target on Twitter

If you wonder how the biggest brands are doing in the social space, a new report from Unmetric is for you - and according to their research it's a different story for each brand. Walmart, finds the report, is scoring big on Facebook while Target is taking their power to the tweet and winning on Twitter.

• 17 millions fans have 'liked' Facebook - Target has 14 million Facebook fans, Kohl's has 7 million
• Target has 339,000 followers on Twitter - Nordstrom has 182,000, Walmart has 156,000
• Target is leading in Facebook growth, however, up 83% over the past 6 months

"Commercial retail has long been an American way of life," said Unmetric CEO, Lux Narayan, "but in the era of social media, these stores are looking for ways to directly engage with their shoppers online and compete for customers. The Unmetric Top Retailer Report looks deep inside the social media strategies of the top US retailers to decipher who's actually winning on Facebook and Twitter."

Perhaps more important than the number of followers, though, is how these brands are engaging their followers and fans. Nordstrom, for example, may be the winner when it comes to how their act and react in the social space. The retail giant uses Twitter to start conversation, typically responds to tweets in under 2 hours; 92% of their tweets are replies.

Comparatively, Walmart responds to tweets in about 90 minutes but only about 7% of their tweets are replies, so they may not be responding to everything 'out there'. And, even though Walmart leads the fan-race on Facebook, Target has a higher Unmetric engagement score - meaning their fewer followers are 1) responding/commenting on statuses and 2) sharing statuses more often than Walmart's followers and fans.